


The Empty Chair

by floorcoaster



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Hints of possible future Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Order Member Draco Malfoy, War, War AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:14:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25532683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floorcoaster/pseuds/floorcoaster
Summary: Draco and Cho resolve to do something about the empty chair.
Comments: 49
Kudos: 71
Collections: Dumbledore's Armada: Wheel of Death Flash Fiction Comp





	The Empty Chair

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Note: Written for the Wheel of Death Flash Fiction Comp hosted by Frumpologist in Dumbledore's Armada Discord Server. My chosen character was Draco Malfoy. 
> 
> My Wheel of Death prompts were:  
> Character: Cho Change  
> Trope: Teammates  
> Theme: War and Peace  
> Quote: “I don’t need it to be easy, I need it to be worth it.” - Lil Wayne. 
> 
> I’d like to thank my alpha/beta, dreamsofdramione, for their time, and for this lovely graphic!
> 
>   
>    
> 

Draco was already in the sparsely furnished room where he spent most of his days when Cho walked in. Their eyes met briefly before she started pacing. He remained in the corner, slouching in a hard, wooden chair with his arms folded, and a scowl on his face. The air around him faintly sizzled with magic from his barely repressed rage. They’d been given their assignment, but it was shite. Nothing felt right. Everything about everything was wrong right now, and he knew he wasn’t the only one who felt it.

Cho finally stopped pacing and stood at one end of the long table in the middle of the room. His chair was more or less at the other end, and his angry, defeated posture was in direct contrast with hers. She was all tension and caution, her shoulders straight as a rod, her lips a thin line, and her brow furrowed in consternation. 

She regarded him curiously. “Well, what do you think?” 

Neither of them glanced at the third chair in the room, the one at the very center of the table, which presently sat empty.

Draco clenched his jaw and glared at her. Everything was fucking wrong. “You know what I think.” He had used some choice words earlier, telling the leaders just _what_ he thought of their direct order, and he didn’t think Cho would need a reminder so soon. Instead of repeating what he’d shouted at Moody and Lupin, he sank further into himself, pressing deeper into the shadows on his side of the room.

Cho gazed at him patiently. “Listen, I don’t like this any more than you do, but we’ve been given a direct order.” 

She still hadn’t mentioned the empty chair, but it was all he could think about. That empty chair represented… well, more than he cared to think about, but clinically, it meant their little think tank was down by one. The Order had decided that their third member was temporarily needed elsewhere, and now ‘missing’ was the most accurate description anyone could find. 

“Don’t even think about it, Malfoy.” 

His eyes snapped to Cho’s after having drifted to the empty chair on their own accord. He hadn’t meant to glance that way, but he supposed that since his thoughts went that way, it was only natural for his gaze to wander to the place where he most frequently saw her. 

“You know I don’t care about their fucking order. I’m not going to just sit here and wait while they squander any chance we might have to seize leads or pick up clues. Is that what you want to do? Sit here and _wish_ and _hope_ her home safely?”

“Do I need to be the one to remind you that you’re under very strict orders not to even leave Headquarters? One wrong move, Malfoy, and they’ll lock you up after the war, no matter how many battles you fought or lives you saved.”

He hesitated. Cho wasn’t wrong; the Order had him in a tight spot. When he’d turned himself in to them and offered his allegiance, they’d made it very clear that he was not to make a move without their permission, else his list of ‘transgressions’ might find its way into the light of day at the end of the war. They’d claimed the threats were for his own safety, but now, two years later, he knew better. He had spent just over a year among the Death Eater ranks, and he knew the Order still didn’t quite trust him. 

Draco kicked the foot of the table hard enough to make him wince. “Yeah? Well, fuck that. If she were here and one of us was missing—”

Cho held up a hand. “I know. She’d stop at nothing to find us. But she’s a Gryffindor, I’d expect no less from her. You’re a Slytherin, and your long track record of protecting your own skin speaks for itself.” He scowled and started to speak, but she continued, her tone gentle. “However uncharacteristic it might be, I do understand why you’re saying it.” Cho paused, then coolly walked round the table towards him. She stopped by the empty chair and lightly brushed the back of it with a single finger. Then she looked at him. “I know how hard this must be for you, Draco.”

Her use of his given name immediately set him on edge. He eyed her warily. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The three of us make a powerful team, but you two…” She chuckled and pulled out the chair. “You two have something I’ve never seen before. I understand why you want to go look for her.”

His jaw dropped. “What? I… You’re… What… No! No, you’re… you’re wrong.” His half-hearted protests sputtered and fell flat. 

Cho rolled her eyes. “Please don’t insult me. I’d have to be deaf, blind, _and_ braindead not to notice the tension between you two.” 

Draco frowned. There was always tension in the room; it was the nature of what they did. Between the three of them, the conversations often became heated and emotional. It was the nature of their assignment and why they all worked so well together. 

Now that he thought about it, though, his arguments with Cho were very different from those with _her_. His first thought was that this was a result of their fractious history; nobody who knew them could be surprised by their tendency to argue. 

She seemed to enjoy their verbal sparring, too, and it was never done in a mean-spirited way. They certainly fed off each other. He could admit that some of his favourite memories happened in this very room, when he and _she_ were on opposite sides of a heated and typically important argument, when the air between them would crackle and her cheeks would flush and he’d sometimes have to remind himself to breathe. 

But that was simply a result of how much they put into these efforts, how impassioned she could be when she believed herself in the right. None of it meant anything, certainly not what Cho was implying. 

One glance at his companion, however, revealed the lie: he’d never felt those things with Cho. 

_She_ made him feel _alive_.

Cho gave him a smug look. “I’m with you two more than anyone else. Sometimes it’s bloody awkward, if I’m honest. I keep expecting you to forget I’m in the room and start snogging.” 

He gaped at her, words completely failing him. 

Then her face softened. “Don’t think I don’t see how she calms the storm in you.”

She pushed the empty chair back under the table and continued walking towards him. With an odd mix of pity, triumph, and tenderness, Cho put her hand on his shoulder. “I know you’re worried. I don’t want to sit here and wait, either. But it’s dangerous. It’s—” Her hand twitched slightly when she froze, and he was instantly on alert.

“What is it?” he asked, ignoring the slight pull to his voice. There was so much for him to consider in what had just happened, but he didn’t have time for that.

Cho walked away and resumed pacing, her arms crossed over her chest. He had spent the better part of two years tucked into this same room, spinning through one scenario after another together, trying to find holes in the Order’s plans, trying to think like the Death Eaters. He knew that look, that spring in her step. Cho’s mind was systematic, logical, and proceeded through each step of a plan. 

_Her_ , though… _She_ was the wild card, the brilliant thinker, the one who forced Cho out of her rigid course, who pushed him and made him dig deeper and question harder. It was she who made the little group work because of the genius locked in her mind and the angles she could see that no one else considered.

“Let’s go through what we know.”

“No, just tell me what you’re thinking!” He didn’t mean to raise his voice, but he was nearing a full-out panic at feeling utterly helpless. 

Cho shook her head. “We do this right, Draco. From the top. What do we know? Come on, we’ve done this a hundred times.”

Draco growled in frustration, gripping the hair at the front of his head. But he decided to play her game. “She was sent on a mission two weeks ago.”

“Two long, agonizing weeks?” She smirked at him. “Never mind. What was her mission?”

“Simple observation! There is no reason for her to have encountered anything dangerous!” He was about to launch into a rant about how ridiculous it was that she was sent on the mission in the first place, but Cho held up a hand.

“Right.” She met his anxious gaze. “And she isn’t one to break protocol—”

He snorted. “Not unless it suits her.”

“—Which she did when she failed to check in three nights ago.”

She’d failed to check in. She never failed to check in. Something had to be terribly wrong. Maybe she’d been captured and was being tortured at that very moment. Or she’d injured herself and couldn’t reach the check-point. Or she’d been hit by a wayward spell and was currently languishing in some safe house, unable to call for help. Or—

His eyes snapped up to Cho, who seemed to have been waiting for him to catch up with her. “She broke protocol.”

“Exactly.”

Draco frowned and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. He bounced one leg, a move that never failed to annoy _her_ , and steepled his fingers. “Why did she do that?”

Cho walked rapidly to her side of the table and continued pacing there. They all had their nervous habits, and they’d long ago established rules for carrying them out. Cho could pace all she wanted, so long as it was on the other side of the room.

“If we figure that out, we can find her. She left a note in lieu of making contact herself. We should start there. I made a copy of it.”

“You’re assuming she hasn’t been captured.” He couldn’t drive that thought completely from his mind.

“Do you honestly think she’d get caught?” Cho gave him a withering look. “It was a simple observation mission, there was barely any risk of danger. We’ve heard nothing from the Death Eaters. You know that if they had _her_ , they’d be shouting it from the rooftops.”

“It’s not likely, I’ll admit. Okay, let’s assume she wasn’t captured or compromised in any way. Why would she break protocol?” His heart was racing. It was the first glimmer of true hope he’d felt since the meeting one hour ago where they’d learned that she’d failed to complete a check-in. Everyone had panicked and teams were sent out immediately, but he and Cho had been told to stay put.

“She would know that the Order would come for her. She must want them there for some reason? There’s only a skeleton crew left here.”

“The note you mentioned.” Draco stood, his heart clenching. “Do you think she was leaving us a clue? Meant for you and me?” 

“There _have_ been concerns about a mole in the Order.” Cho’s eyes were bright. “Maybe she figured out who it is! This could be huge!” She came around the table, her face suddenly serious. “Draco, this won’t be easy, breaking faith with the Order. There could be repercussions. It could be dangerous.”

“I don’t need it to be easy, I need it to be worth it. And finding her, maybe finding the mole, is absolutely worth it.”

They stood and faced each other, resolved to do whatever they had to do. As one, they pulled their chairs to sit beside each other, right across from the empty one. Cho laid the note on the table between them. 

“Let’s get to work.”


End file.
